The typical automotive vehicle includes a cross-car beam attached laterally between opposite sides of the forward portion of the vehicle. The instrument panel assembly is ordinarily attached to the cross-car beam, thus the cross-car beam serves as a substrate for the instrument panel.
It is known today to use stamped steel components in the construction of the conventional cross-car beam. Typically the cross-car beam is constructed from several stamped components or formed steel brackets welded together to form the cross-car beam. This design has the function of providing support for the vehicle structure, the plastic injection molded IP substrate, the steering column, airbag systems and other vehicle modules.
Known cross-car beam structures suffer from a variety of disadvantages. First, it is heavy. This type of system can weigh anywhere between 30 lbs and 50 lbs depending on the size and type of vehicle. The significant weight added to the vehicle according to known designs runs contrary to design goals of overall vehicle weight reduction.
Second, known cross-car beam designs are also package inefficient, requiring an extensive supporting structure behind the instrument panel substrate. In today's vehicle there are many components to be fitted in relation to the instrument panel and the cross-car beam, including without limitation air bags and their related assemblies, the HVAC case, ducting, and the radio/electronics cage. The substantial structure of known cross-car beams takes excess space required by these components leading to the need to design these components with complex and difficult geometries just to fit within the space allotted.
Third, and related to the packaging challenges of known designs, changing the cross-car beam configuration to adapt it to different vehicle interior designs, even in response to relatively minor modifications, is also costly and time-consuming. The known cross-car beam system thus requires a large amount of investment, having as it does many pieces and components to be tooled. A typical steel cross-car beam can have as many as twenty-four components to its assembly, sometimes requiring an investment of about $5,000,000 per plant.
Accordingly, as in so many areas of vehicle technology, there is room in the art of cross-car beam design for an alternative configuration that provides effective protection that can be adapted to a variety of shapes while maintaining relatively low manufacturing and assembly costs.